18.9.06

The Empire's mice

Below is an attempt to translate an article for Khaled Saghiyyeh published in Al-Akhbar in 14 august 2006. It is not an accurate translation and may contain mistakes, but I thought it would be interesting to discuss it. For the original arabic article, press here.

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The empire needs mice. Sometimes, these mice are sent to the laboratory of democracy and update. Other times, military experiments are done on them .We, the people of the previous colonies, are not except mice. When we shout in the arenas, we shout as mice. And when we die under the debris, we die as mice.

Yet we, the Lebanese, are a distinguished kind of laboratory mice .Our uniqueness lies in our choice to play the role of a mouse twice, in two successive years and in two opposite trends .In the first time, we were the mouse that -in case of the success of the laboratory experiment- its model will be generalized on the countries of the Greater or the new Middle East. We were the mouse that is transferred by a press-a-button to a happy rabbit that leads a happy revolution with happy rebels . And in the second time, we were the mouse whose model will be generalized on " the axis of evil " countries .We were the mouse that is transferred by another press-a-button to a crow celebrating the horror and destruction coming from sky, from planes that do not see its victims' faces. The victims, in return, do not see their killers' faces.

It is not the first time that the empire uses whole nations in an experimentation field, in politics as in economy .In the past, General Augusto Pinochet was called for the presentation of the Chilean people as mice to test new economic recipes, before Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher used them and generalized them all over the world. It was Chile whose some of its soldiers volunteered to execute an CIA plan, giving the chance for a bitter experiment. And today, the choice did not fall on Lebanon except after many from its sons volunteered offering it as a mouse... not as a country!!

3 Comments:

I bet the 'chicago boys' who presided over the economic reform in Chile under Pinochet did nt see their country as a mouse so much. Rather i bet they were thinking that they are laying foundations of the new economy after the old one was devastated by 3 years of Allende's marxist experiments. Chile today is by far the Latin America's best economy.

I would offer to see the matter as an issue of perception. If you see yourself as a laboratory mouse, then you are one.

The Al Akhbar newspaper has been increasingly (since its recent birth) categorized as pro-Syrian propaganda machine (in the same way Al Mustaqbal is, obviously, a pro-Mustaqbal propaganda machine) and I think this little piece goes quite a way in promoting that categorization.

To sum up the national milestones that have been accomplised in the span of 18 months (at a terrible cost, yes) as an American-inspired experiment (or two) is disgusting. The hearts of all the Lebanese cried out for the Syrians' expulsion from Lebanon and through Hariri's death we were able to do it.

If the Lebanese who cried for their country's freedom from Syria's army in February/March 2005, and from Iran's militia in July/August 2006 are American mice, then the metaphor-happy author of this worthless piece is a Syrian-Iranian rat!